Your business can trade in more than cash alone

The majority of us live our whole lives under the assumption that the only thing with true monetary value is, well… money. The value of everything else seems to fluctuate massively. However, it’s important to remember that you can often benefit from trading in other ways.

They may not be quite as familiar as dealing with standard cash transactions. After all, you’ve had an entire lifetime to get used to these! So these new means of trade will likely take a little getting used to, but they’re generally worth the time and effort involved! Here are just a couple of options for you to consider for the time being.

Stocks and shares

One way to trade on the market besides cash is to trade in stocks and shares. When you purchase a stock or share, you purchase something that is fluid. You’re not investing in a static, tangible good. You are investing in a share of a company. There are generally two types of stocks and shares that will interest you. There are standard stocks, which entitle you to a share of the company itself. Then there are dividend stocks, which entitle you to a share of the given company’s profits.

Once you’ve purchased a stock, its value will change in accordance with the company’s worth. If you sell up at the right time, you could make a whole lot of money back. If you invest in a company whose worth only seems to ever increase, you can use your share as a space to store your cash investment. Alternatively, you can literally trade stocks with others. Now, this is a relatively significant commitment, as you need to be dedicated to the stock market, keeping a constant eye on the value of the shares that you have invested in.

The thing to be aware of with stocks and shares is that it is not a certain investment. At the end of the day, it’s a bit of a gamble. Stocks can be relatively volatile, peaking and dipping drastically in moments. So you need to be prepared to sell at any given moment, should your share momentarily rise in price. When you’re a businessperson, this (of course) can be challenging, as your mind is likely to be in all sorts of other places. But there are ways that you can make your investments as safe as possible.

The best option is to practice on stock simulators before getting involved. There are plenty of online simulators that allow you to engage in the real stock market in real time. But you only invest with fake money. This means that you get to engage with stocks and shares without risking losing any real money. This gives you the best chance possible to train yourself and familiarise yourself with the process before putting any real money down. Try out Investopedia. This is a crowd favorite, as it tracks your portfolio, informs you of your trade options, monitors your short stock, helps you to place market orders, and also helps you to limit orders.

Forex

You may not have heard of forex before, but forex trading is the simultaneous buying and selling of the world’s currencies on a decentralized global market. Some will refer to this as “foreign exchange” on the “FX market.” While it may seem pretty basic at first glance, this market requires a lot of speculation, and consequently, there’s a whole lot of money to be made from it, with the industry generating around $5 trillion of profit per day. The market is also open to trade twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, so it’s possible for any individual in any location to try their hand at it!

Cryptocurrency

Chances are that you’ve heard of cryptocurrency at some point or another. The subject has been thrown around the media a whole lot in the past year or so. So, what actually is it? Well, cryptocurrency isn’t tangible currency. But it’s also extremely different to money that is being stored in a bank that you can track on online banking or apps. The main difference is that cryptocurrency is solely digital. You can’t have cryptocash in the same way that you’d be able to take cash out of a cash point or withdraw cash from a bank with standard currency (turning the money from digital to tangible). However, other than this point, cryptocurrency does tend to behave in a similar way to the currency you’re used to dealing with. It is used as a means of exchange. From a business point of view, you can offer goods out and take payment in cryptocurrency. You can then use this cryptocurrency to trade with other businesses who accept this form of payment. It’s secure, and people can’t just generate extra currency themselves, as the cryptography that monitors it prohibits the creation of additional units. Now, you might be asking, why would I want to trade in cryptocurrency? Why not cut out the hassle and simply demand standard payment? Well, it allows you to accept payments without money having to pass through central authorities. This means that with the use of cryptocurrency, you gain pseudonymity, immutability, divisibility, and decentralization. To get involved with cryptocurrency, you’ll have to trade cash for cryptocurrency in the first place, but this can easily be done through a specialist exchange agency.

These are just two ways to engage with the market and potentially make significant profits without dealing solely in cash alone. There are plenty more out there, but these are some examples that people have made a lot of money with recently. As with any form of investment or financial deal, make sure to do plenty of research beforehand and dabble with small amounts of money rather than large sums to start with while you find your feet in the new enterprise. It won’t be all too long until you’re a pro and dealing in stocks and shares or cryptocurrency on a more regular basis!